Midnight Moonlight
by Mango Marbles
Summary: They weren't inexperienced, but Sam and Dean's last encounter with werewolves left them with more than physical scars. Set in Season 11, post 11x17 Red Meat.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Supernatural

 **Author's Note:** This was a three word challenge from Tisha P Moon, who gave me the words cheese, glittery, and sharp to work with. I hope that she enjoys this story, and that all other readers do as well. Please review at the end!

* * *

Sam watched Dean with a combination of equal parts fascination and disgust. While Sam ordered a simple salad, Dean's order covered more than half of their table (built for a family of four) at the diner.

"Cheese curds, beer cheese soup, and, of course, a butter burger with extra cheese and extra onions," Sam listed off. "Are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?"

"Cas'd fix me," Dean said, eyes huge and grin wide as he took in the array of food set out before him (particularly the cheese curds, freshly fried and still glistening with grease). "And you forgot to mention the beer. Spotted Cow, only available in Wisconsin."

"Yeah, that's the real crime here."

"C'mon, Sammy. We're in the dairy state. They call the people here 'cheeseheads'. You can't just not sample their delicacies."

"We're not exactly here on vacation, Dean."

Dean had a fistful of cheese curds in his mouth already. "No, I know," he said, his words muffled. "Woulda gone to the Grand Canyon or whatever. A beach, maybe."

"With our luck, we'd pick a beach with a mermaid problem."

"Whatever. Look, we still have, like, three days before the full moon. We know where they like to hang out. What more is there for us to do before we go out and gank the sons of bitches?"

"I'm just saying that our last werewolf hunt wasn't exactly smooth," Sam said. "We need to be prepared this time."

Sam unconsciously moved his hand to press against the scar on his stomach, where a bullet wound almost spelled out his death (with the aid of a desperate, future werewolf). Sometimes, he still felt the slight discomfort and pull of stitches, even though they'd been removed weeks ago. He was back in top shape, but this hunt brought up more than mental memories. His body itself remembered the last werewolf hunt.

Dean's enthusiasm dropped. He still tried to make up that hunt to Sam with small gestures. Simple things, like making something healthier for supper or getting stuff for Sam to make his coffee a little sweeter when he went on supply runs. Creamers and syrups.

Sam didn't need any sorry-I-left-you-to-die-in-the-woods gifts. Dean tried to salvage a terrible situation, and he did his best to get the victims (or victim and her lying husband) to safety. He did his best to get their job done. Although, Sam didn't agree with his decisions after they reached safety.

"I know, Sam," Dean said. "We can't have a repeat of last time. And I'm not just using that as a saying. We really, really can _not_ repeat last time. I don't think it'll work well for either of us."

"That's why we should use these few days before the full moon to scope out the area and thoroughly plan the hunt," Sam said.

"Fine. Just let me enjoy my dinner at least," Dean said.

While he didn't look as ecstatic as he did before (and should someone really look like all of their dreams are coming true when they stare at a table full of heart attack inducing food?), Dean still looked determined to finish every bite set out in front of him.

"I'm not stopping you," Sam said. "But don't make yourself sick. We have a couple hours of driving to go yet."

"Relax, Sam. My stomach is made of steel."

* * *

"What the fuck is going on, Sam?" Dean asked. The head of another vampire fell off as Dean slid the sharp blade of his silver knife across its throat. The knife he brought along for skewering werewolf hearts. "You said werewolves, not vampires."

"I don't know!" Sam yelled. Times like this, he really wished that the old staking method was enough to kill vampires. Or that he brought a machete along. "All the vics had missing hearts! It should have been werewolves."

Sam managed to unpin himself from one vampire and decapitate it with a silver knife of his own, but a second one sunk its sharp teeth into Sam's shoulder.

Sam jerked his shoulder away, but a chunk of flesh stayed lodged in the vampires mouth (and hurt like a bitch when torn off). He pressed his opposite hand over the wound, blood already glittery on his fingers in the light of the full moon.

It was the last vamp still standing, and Dean rectified that quickly before helping Sam to his feet.

"We're leaving, Sam," Dean said. "You said to be prepared, and clearly we aren't. So, we're going."

Despite the chilled air of the night and the fact that Sam could see his own breath, his shoulder burned. He felt the heat of his own life seeping through his fingers, and it was too reminiscent of their last werewolf hunt for his comfort. The closest shelter being an abandoned cabin and the site of an unexpected vampire nest didn't help.

But they had a job to do, and more innocents could die if they failed.

"Dean, there can't be anymore vampires. We probably killed the entire nest. Let's just finish this, I'll be fine."

Dean wiped blood from his knife and sheathed it before he dragged Sam into the cabin. "We should at least get something covering your shoulder to stem the bleeding."

"The classic Winchester bandana bandage?" Sam asked.

Dean grinned, though it lacked its usual brightness, and slapped Sam's uninjured shoulder. "What else would we use?"

Sam kept his breathing even as Dean wrapped his shoulder. The dim lighting of the lamps, which flickered in and out, reminded him too much of when he laid on the floor, weak from a gunshot wound and nearly choked out by a psychotic soon-to-be werewolf (his body slipping into shock being the thing that saved him).

"You okay, Sam?"

Sam nodded a few times. "Yeah, I'm good. Just some bad memories."

"We have more than our fair share, don't we?"

Sam shrugged his good shoulder. "Comes with the job."

"Is that why you've tried so hard to get out of it?" Dean asked. He spoke again before Sam could respond. "I do get it, though. I spent nearly a year with Lisa, and maybe I was out of my mind with grief, but not putting my ass on the line everyday for strangers… I get it. The safety."

"I think the first time was more to get away from Dad," Sam said. "I had to spend every day for years with him looking at me like something was wrong. Like I was never good enough."

"He never thought that."

"Dean…"

The application of a classic Winchester bandana bandage with a dose of the family therapy that only came when someone was hurt or actively dying.

"We can hash this all out later, Sammy," Dean said. "But those werewolves are gonna catch a whiff of your blood and be on the hunt for you. Wounded prey and all that."

Even when Dean promised they'd deal with it later, Sam knew that it was equally likely (perhaps _more_ likely) that it would get swept under the rug like every other issue between them had in recent years.

"Glad to make the hunt easier," Sam said.

"Shut up, Sam."

Dean stood up and looked out through all of the windows, then checked the clip of silver bullets in his gun and looked out of the windows again.

Sam watched, trying to ignore the building throb from his shoulder that made it difficult to think.

"Wait, Dean, are you actually using me to draw the werewolves here?" Sam asked.

Dean glared at him. "Well, I'm not dragging you through the woods while you're hurt. Either they come here and I kill them, or we hold out until morning and leave the job to some other hunter to deal with next month."

"Dean…"

"Don't 'Dean' me, Sam. I'm not making the same mistakes again. I refuse to let you out of my sight while you're injured. Now, how many werewolves are there supposed to be?"

"Just a pair, from what I could tell through interviewing witnesses and reading the reports," Sam said. "Any of the vamps get you?"

"Few cuts and bruises, but, unlike you, I'm not missing any chunks."

Sam tried to find a comfortable way to hold his own gun, but it felt awkward in his left hand, and moving his right hand made sharp spikes of pain shoot through his shoulder.

"Take it easy, Sammy. I can handle a couple of werewolves."

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean was overcompensating for the last time. When he found out that Sam killed two werewolves before he even made it to the Impala last time, and then killed Corbin as well, he mentally punished himself as much as he could without drinking himself to death (alcohol isn't good for someone who nearly overdosed on a mixture of pills from the clinic's cabinet).

As time passed and they waited, the bleeding from his shoulder started to slow, but not before it saturated the bandana tied around it. Sam nodded off a few times, but Dean never bothered him about it. Hell, Dean probably wanted him to rest and let him take care of everything.

Like that was going to happen anytime soon.

"Couple hours 'til sunrise, then we can get out of here," Dean said. "Just hold on a little longer, Sammy."

"I'm fine, Dean. We should be doing our job and hunting those wolves, not seeing if they'll hunt me."

At the sound of the window shattering nearby his head, Sam dropped to the ground, avoiding being hit by the werewolf who burst through. Glass shards rained around him, glittery in the low lighting.

Dean's gun went off and the first werewolf yelped and whimpered, wounded but not dead. Another window shattered, and Sam heard Dean cursing in the middle of a bunch of clattering and objects breaking.

Sam got to his feet and managed to find a grip on his gun despite the fresh waves of blood starting to pump out of his reopened shoulder wound. With the first werewolf writhing in pain, it was easy to get a silver bullet in its heart, with or without his injury.

He killed the first wolf just in time to see the second one take a swipe at Dean, who had to drop to the ground to avoid its full force, but still got grazed by the werewolf's sharp claws.

"Dean, stay down!" Sam yelled.

He shot at the wolf a few times. His aim was wild, but as long as he didn't hit Dean, he didn't care. While he couldn't quite hit the heart, he gave Dean the opportunity to line up a shot straight to the heart.

"Guess we gotta clean up each other's messes," Dean said with a grin.

"And each other's wounds before we both end up with infections."

* * *

Sam took a deep breath. Dean finally finished cleaning out and bandaging his shoulder with real medical supplies. The shoddy motel wasn't the bunker—it wasn't home—but it was good enough for the night (or morning, it took a couple of hours to clean up the bodies and even make it to the motel).

"That… could have been worse," Sam said. "What the hell were vampires and werewolves doing sharing a hunting ground?"

"Wolves get the hearts, vamps get the blood?"

"I guess we've seen stranger things."

Dean flopped onto the bed closer to the door, exhausted, showered, and his cuts patched up. "We can't keep doing this, Sam. Almost being taken out by hunts that should be milk runs."

"What, you want to quit hunting? _You_?"

"I don't know. We still have to deal with all the Darkness shit, but I don't want to watch you bleed out in the middle of the woods again. I can't do that."

Sam laid on his own bed, staring up at a stained ceiling. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Their hunt started with Dean stuffing himself with cheese that was battered, fried, and glittery with grease, and ended with them being attacked by sharp teeth and sharp claws.

He always thought that their lives would end with them being torn apart by a set of those sharp claws, eaten by those sharp teeth, or any other death from a series of horrible possibilities due to the creatures they faced.

Maybe, after the Darkness was taken care of, they could find a different path to follow with a different end in store.


End file.
